ALT BELFAST TRAINEE SOLICITOR PROGRAMME 2024 London, England
Job description
BELFAST
THE OPPORTUNITY
Our 2.5-year ALT Trainee Solicitor Programme starting September 2024 offers you the chance to work with prestigious international clients as part of a global, collaborative and award-winning team. At the end of the programme, you will qualify as a solicitor under England and Wales Law.
Seat rotation
You will rotate through four seats which will enable you to hone your skills across a range of practice areas, helping you to become a well-rounded solicitor. Your first seat will be 12 months long and the remaining 3 seats will be 6 months long. We offer seats in the following practice areas: Disputes, Corporate, Funds, Finance & Banking, Real Estate & Construction, and Employment, Pensions & Incentives. The programme is flexible, giving you the option to complete all seats in Belfast or to take up the opportunity to experience a seat in our London office.
Education
We will support your development through the completion of our bespoke development programme called "Accelerate" during your first 12 month seat. This programme includes a range of personal and technical skills modules tailored to reflect ALT business priorities and is delivered in partnership with BPP, one of the UK’s premium Legal Training providers. Following completion of the "Accelerate" programme in your first seat, you will undertake the SQE learning programme part-time during your remaining 3 seats.
Key Responsibilities
- Dealing with complex legal matters or generally as directed by Solicitors, Senior Solicitors, Managers and Senior Managers.
- Conducting document review, due diligence and other fee-earning work as required.
- Undertake Quality Control and provide constructive feedback to reviewers to ensure that output is consistent with HSF quality standards.
- Undertake project management for matters: create standardised processes and implement a common set of principles, practices and templates for managing and reporting.
- Support the effective delivery of complex legal matters by implementing appropriate systems and/or technology to streamline tasks and deliver efficiencies.
- Providing general support to the Manager, Senior Solicitors and Solicitors in the delivery of matters – including, where appropriate, liaising with the instructing team and/or external client.
- Ensuring compliance with financial disciplines on matters (e.g. daily time-recording, WIP reporting).
- Providing other assistance to the business on client matters and related tasks as required.
- Taking initiative to apply previous experience to assist in efficient running of matters.
- Actively engage in problem solving on matters.
- Maintaining an up-to-date knowledge of relevant areas of law to the local office's practice.
The responsibilities outlined above cannot totally encompass or define all tasks that may be required of the post-holder. The outline of responsibilities given above may, therefore, vary from time to time without materially changing either the character or level of responsibility or grade.
SKILLS, EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS
- Be a penultimate or final year law or LLM student with a law degree, or
- Be a Graduate with a qualifying Law degree (including PGDL);
- Have A Level (or equivalent) - minimum of BBB or 120+ UCAS points (equates to 300 UCAS points under the previous tariff) and evidence consistent 2:1s throughout your degree, but we do take mitigating circumstances into account;
- Demonstrate an ability to review, analyse and organise documentary and factual evidence;
- Have excellent organisational and communication skills;
- Show an eye for detail, aiming to get it right first time;
- Be committed to delivering excellent client service through understanding the client context, building relationships, and taking a commercial approach; and
- Have an aptitude for learning (and becoming proficient in) the use of software and IT applications, and using software tools intelligently to navigate large databases/document management systems.
COMPETENCIES
1. Personal leadership
2. Technical capability
3. Contributes to team and firm
4. Supports the delivery of outcomes
5. Enhances the client experience
6. Contributes to building the firm
The closing date for applications is 12.00pm (GMT) on Tuesday 25th April 2024.
GROUP / TEAM
Graduates
LOCATION DESCRIPTION
The decision to open an office in Belfast was driven by a wish to further enhance what is already a pre-eminent global dispute resolution practice. We have recruited a number of highly capable lawyers and legal assistants to work closely with the London team to manage the major international litigation and arbitration cases that the firm is famous for. The focus of the team is the documentary analysis critical to the investigation of matters and cases. Our offering in Belfast further enhances the quality and efficiency of our service and price competitiveness to clients.
ABOUT US
With nearly 5,000 staff, including 2,800 lawyers, Herbert Smith Freehills is one of the largest, fully-integrated law firms in the world and is the leading firm in Asia Pacific.
We advise many of the largest and most ambitious organisations across all major regions of the world. Our reputation for providing outstanding legal expertise is thoroughly deserved: we are globally pre-eminent in all forms of dispute resolution and an international leader in corporate and finance. We are one of the world's top-ranked energy and resources firms. We offer our clients a top-tier capability across a single global platform with a distinctive focus on industry sectors and an un-paralleled depth of expertise.
Join us, and you will work with inspiring people, many of whom are leaders in their fields. You will be faced with demanding and intellectually stimulating work that will require more than just technical ability. You will need to have a sense of the bigger picture, the ability to cut to the heart of the matter and a gift for developing exceptional working relationships. With more than 20 offices across the globe in fast-growing markets like China, Indonesia and Russia and established centres like the UK, Europe, the US and Australia, we can offer you the international opportunities that only a leading global practice can provide.
We recognise that the success of our business and our clients relies on the skills, knowledge and ideas of all our people. Our environment is one in which high performance is expected, in return, we will provide you with rewards and opportunities tailored to your personal and professional goals.
Before you apply, have you visited our interactive platform? Learn more about working at Herbert Smith Freehils, ask a question to one of our Insiders or read previous discussions
https://herbertsmithfreehills.career-inspiration.com/app/insiders.
CONTRACT TYPE
Training Contract
START YEAR
2024
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
At Herbert Smith Freehills you will be part of a diverse, innovative culture where high performance, client focus and highly engaged people are our differentiator. People at our firm come from a range of backgrounds and bring a wide variety of experiences and perspectives to their work with us. We strive to ensure that our inclusive environment means you feel valued and able to perform at your best by being your authentic self at work. We know that our future success not only depends on being innovative and progressive in the changing legal market but, most importantly, on our people feeling highly engaged in meaningful work.
We understand that you have commitments and personal interests outside of work and we strive to create a working environment based on mutual trust and respect, in which you can perform at your best whilst maintaining sustainable balance across your life.
Please let us know if you require any adjustments to be made to enable you to participate fully in the recruitment process for any reason, for example due to a disability or health condition.
HSF operates an Adjustments Policy applicable to all staff, partners and applicants, and this policy is designed to ensure that we create an inclusive and supportive environment where everyone can perform to their full potential. A copy of the Adjustments Policy can be provided upon request.
